


Crown the Fallen Star-Maker

by Arcafira



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eating Disorders, F/F, First Kiss, Hospitals, Ineffable Wives | Female Aziraphale/Female Crowley (Good Omens), Kind of meta, Mental Health Issues, Poetry, Sonnets, includes original poetry, references to script book deleted scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:26:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24130543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcafira/pseuds/Arcafira
Summary: For the last few months, Crowley has been building a crown of sonnets for a fallen angel who, in her version of mythology, set the stars in the sky.When Crowley happens across A. Z. Fell and Co. on the way back from her hospital stay, she meets a kind bookseller who becomes a positive presence during her eating disorder recovery.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 68





	Crown the Fallen Star-Maker

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley's experiences with hospitalization, eating disorder recovery, and school are based in some of my own experiences. That said, if anything here is incorrect or potentially harmful, I'd like to know. I don't go into a lot of detail regarding ED behaviors or hospitalization, but if this is something you've struggled with or think might be potentially triggering, this might be a fic to avoid. Take care of yourself <3
> 
> A crown of sonnets is a series of fifteen sonnets based around a central theme. Each sonnet begins with the final line of the preceding one. I didn't write fifteen sonnets because sonnets are _hard_ , and most of these don't strictly adhere to the form. Imagine that Crowley is a better poet than me and actually wrote and revised fifteen.

Crowley was still wearing the patient wristband from the hospital when she saw the bookshop at the crossroads. Most people hurried by without even a glance through the windows, but Crowley couldn’t stop staring even though her bag weighed heavy on her shoulder and all she’d previously cared about was returning to her flat and sleeping for an entire week. Maybe even a month. Her semester was already down the drain as it was.

Her phone vibrated in the pocket of her black jeans. Probably Anathema checking in, wondering if she needed anything. Crowley ignored it and crossed the street to A. Z. Fell and Co.

The shop’s hours were posted in the door’s window, and Crowley had to squint to read the handwritten flowery script. Eventually she gave up and tried the door. A cheery bell rang out as she entered, and when she closed the door behind her, the bustle of Soho became muffled and distant.

Nothing moved in the shop, and Crowley waited as if needing permission not only to enter but to breathe, to make any noise that disturbed the reverent hush. The shop’s sign had been incredibly accurate—or “nice” as Anathema would sometimes say, to the confusion of those who didn’t know her well. This place dealt in _antiquarian_ books. There’d be none of the contemporary poetry Crowley studied as part of her coursework. This was not the kind of hip bookshop to host poetry slams in its backroom or attic.

Footsteps sounded just as Crowley was thinking she should go. A stiff woman wearing an abundance of beige and a bit of a frown stepped around a bookshelf and into a sunray beaming in from the skylight. Crowley was distracted by the way the light made a golden halo of her pile of blond curls and missed the first thing she said.

“Are you quite alright, dear?” she asked, frown transforming from one of irritation to concern.

What must she look like to this woman? Leather jacket, ripped jeans, dyed red hair—in a place like this? In contrast, the shop owner wore a skirt of conservative cut and length, an innocently blue shirt that buttoned up to her neck, and layers of some kind of old-fashioned vests or coats or—something. And . . . was that a pocket watch chain? _Fucking hell_ , Crowley thought.

“I, yup, I’m—ngk,” said Crowley. “Actually, I’ll just be popping along—"

“Wait,” the woman said, just as Crowley’s hand grasped the door handle. The paper wristband peeked out from the sleeve of her jacket, and Crowley didn’t miss the woman’s glance at it. She straightened and tugged at her sleeve.

“Do you need anything?” The woman started forward, the click of her heels sharp on the old wood floor.

Crowley shifted her bag on her shoulder. The woman had asked the question with a gentleness that implied something beyond the usual offer for retail assistance. As she neared, the sunlight glinted off of a small golden cross that hung from a delicate chain around her neck.

“May I?” she asked, reaching for Crowley’s hands.

She nodded her head, could not summon words.

The woman smiled a gentle smile that crinkled the skin around her blue eyes and led Crowley back through the shelves from where she had come. “Have a seat, dear,” she said, gesturing to a soft leather couch piled with intricately patterned throws. Crowley was happy to finally sling her bag from her shoulders and sat without question. The woman busied herself filling an electric kettle, and Crowley watched her in a daze. When she turned back to Crowley, she offered a neat little china teacup with a saucer and everything. Crowley’s hands took it automatically, and their shaking rattled the porcelain.

“Milk or sugar?” she said.

“Um, it’s fine,” Crowley managed to say.

The woman smiled again and took a chair nearby, sitting as if, once upon a time, she’d had a strict nanny who’d set books on her head.

“I don’t know who you are,” Crowley blurted.

“Oh, how silly of me. I’m Aziraphine,” she offered. “And you?”

“Crowley.”

“What a lovely name,” she said, and it sounded sincere.

“Yours is—” Crowley cast about for the right word.

“It’s a family name,” she said as if repeating something she’d said hundreds of times. “Named after my grandfather Aziraphale, you see. This—” She gestured around her. “—was his shop.”

“Real nice place,” said Crowley.

“I rather think so.” And there was that beaming smile again.

Crowley was having a hard time guessing this woman’s age. She spoke and dressed like a happy anachronism but couldn’t be much older than Crowley. Early thirties at most.

Crowley tried to breathe. Drank her tea as it cooled.

“What brought you here today?” asked Aziraphine.

Crowley made a series of noises in her throat as she tried to piece together an explanation that made sense, a truth that didn’t leave her vulnerable. She set aside the tea on a nearby table and twirled the paper wristband around her arm. A nervous habit she’d picked up over the weeks spent in the treatment center. Aziraphine had already seen it. No use in hiding.

“Dunno,” she started. “Kind of a long story. Boring too.”

Aziraphine looked thoughtfully at the shelves around her. “I’ve endured many a long, dry tale.”

“Okay, fair,” Crowley huffed. “I have this thing that’s been ruining my life.” Saying this vulnerable truth aloud was a strange thing, already scary enough when broaching it with therapists. She expected it’d be worse with a stranger, but Aziraphine was . . . different. “Has been ruining my life for a long time now, but I guess it got worse. Did get worse. I was just released from the hospital, and I saw your place and a bookshop seemed so comforting and familiar after all the weirdness of staying in a hospital in a strange bed in a blank room, and—” She made herself stop, though the room was still a heavy presence in her memory. Every piece of blunt-edged furniture had been screwed to the floor. A sheet of metal instead of glass for the bathroom mirror. No shower curtain. Nothing she could hurt herself with.

“Then I hope it has provided a degree of comfort.” Crowley wanted to thank someone that Aziraphine wasn’t the prying type. “You’re welcome anytime you’re in the area.”

Crowley finished her tea, thanked Aziraphine, and rose to leave. Aziraphine walked her to the door like a kind hostess as if they were in Aziraphine’s home and not her place of business. As Crowley walked down the steps, she tried to ignore the tug on her heart that bade her to go back, the urge to run to Aziraphine and pillow her head against her soft body and cry the tears she’d been holding in for weeks.

Instead, she took the bus home, climbed the stairs to her flat, and texted Anathema a quick _home. safe. going to nap. call later?_ before falling into her bed.

* * *

She woke with her cheek stuck to the sleeve of her leather jacket. Groaned. Fumbled for her phone and squinted against its light. According to the date and time, she’d slept for nearly 24 hours. According to the full-body ache screaming through her body, she should have changed out of her clothes and slept properly under the covers.

Getting herself together like a proper human being still took more effort than she liked, each task dragging on what little reserves she had. She wished she could just snap her fingers and be magically presentable. Eventually though, she was showered and dressed. She’d brushed her teeth. Her red hair lay damp against her forehead. The last thing she had energy for today was drying it and tousling it up into an artful sweep. And so it would have to be.

Tomorrow, she’d start intensive outpatient therapy, but for today, she would let herself wallow inasmuch was healthy.

 _awake. dressed_ , she texted Anathema.

 _Great!_ an answer pinged back almost immediately. _Do you need anything? I can bring over food and we can hang out, watch a movie? Or I can give you space. Whichever you need. Just let me know._

She set her phone aside, let her face fall into her hands. She was this kind of person now. The person who people felt the need to check in on because they’d revealed themselves to be too fragile. It was something she’d agreed to, the check-ins. But it didn’t stop her from feeling like a burden on other people’s generosity.

 _maybe_ , she forced herself to respond and curled up on the couch. She should go shopping for food. She should eat. This was the first day of her life post-hospitalization, and she wanted to do everything she could to avoid ending up in the place that had brought her there, both physically and emotionally. But it was easier not to move. That was always easier.

An hour passed. Crowley stared at her blank wall and did not move. She’d eaten so little for so long that her body’s natural hunger cues were fucked, but she knew, when a wave of nausea rolled over her, that she’d put off a meal for too long. She’d made progress in the hospital. They were slow, small steps but progress nonetheless.

She made herself get up, go to the kitchen, cut the wristband from her arm with a paring knife. She crumpled it in her fist and trashed it.

 _actually, yeah, if you’d still like to come round?_ she texted Anathema.

_Be there in a bit!_

When Anathema arrived with a tote bag full of food and spices, Crowley was outside her flat tossing her bathroom scale into the rubbish bin.

“Shall we go up?” Crowley said before Anathema could ask questions.

Despite being alone on the lift, awkward silence settled between them. When the door finally opened, Anathema said, “I brought over ingredients for a famous Device family recipe. Just a simple stew, but my mum would always make it when I wasn’t feeling well. Helps clear the aura.”

In Crowley’s flat, Anathema immediately busied herself in the kitchen chopping vegetables and measuring spices. Crowley lingered awkwardly. “Need any help?” she offered, though the small studio’s kitchen had limited counter space and there was barely room for one person to work, let alone two. And even though Anathema had only come over to cook and lounge around Crowley’s flat, she was dressed as usual in a lacey top and billowing skirt. Crowley wondered if Anathema really was just perfection and style personified or if she’d been out already when she got Crowley’s text. Crowley had traded her usual sharp all-black-everything for soft black sweatpants and an oversized gray shirt, the things she wore when she couldn’t stand to have clothes remind her of the boundaries of her body.

“If you just want to keep me company and chat,” Anathema said, throwing a smile over her shoulder.

“Yeah, sure.” And then Crowley’s words dried up again. The rhythmic sound of Anathema chopping vegetables and the traffic outside was the only sound in the flat until Crowley said, “I found this cool bookshop in Soho when I was on my way back.”

“Really?” said Anathema brightly. “I’m always ready to add another local bookshop to my list of places to check out. What’s it like?”

“Well. Has this vintage look, you know? Like it was opened centuries ago and has kept its original interior. Everything’s antique. Family business, actually. They’ve had it for a couple generations. 

“How did you find that out?”

“Happened to meet the owner is all. She’s . . .” Crowley searched for a word. “She’s nice.” 

Anathema’s hands stilled and she turned fully to Crowley. Put her hands on her hips. “AJ Crowley, do I hear what I think I hear?” 

“Look—” 

She put her fingers to her temples, closed her eyes and hummed. “Does your aura have a blush of pink?” 

“It’s nothing.” But the memory of Aziraphine’s soft warm hands around hers returned. The angelic glow of the sun in her hair. “She was just being nice. Plus, I’ve got too much going on.” She mumbled this last part. 

Anathema sobered. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Crowley leaned a hip against the sink. Crossed her arms. “The director of graduate studies says I can take an incomplete on my courses for this semester if I need, but I’d like to try and finish this year out. Make up the work I missed while I was in the hospital. If all I have to focus on is therapy, I think I might actually lose my mind.” 

“I don’t want to tell you what to do,” Anathema started carefully. “But just listen to your body, okay? Be kind to yourself. It seems like balancing intensive therapy and school might be a lot.” 

Crowley changed the subject. “How’s workshop been?” 

“Mostly everyone freaking out about portfolios coming due. Lots of talk about finding affordable printers. Pepper’s last two poems have wowed everyone.” Anathema returned to chopping vegetables, but her pace was slower, her face pensive. “We’ve missed you. Seeing your usual desk empty has been hard.” She pushed the minced garlic aside on the cutting board to make room to work on the ginger. “When you have more poems for that crown of sonnets you’ve been working on, I’d be happy to look at them and give feedback.” 

“Thanks,” was all Crowley could say around the lump in her throat. For the last few months, she’d been building a crown for a fallen angel who, in her version of mythology, had set the stars in the sky. 

Anathema smiled, turned her attention back to the vegetables. 

“Before the hospital, I’d finished something that I was going to turn into workshop,” said Crowley. That day had started out normal as anything. Then she’d fainted on the stairway up to her class, and someone had found her and called for help. What began as doctors’ concerns over a possible concussion evolved when they discovered she was underweight and had an irregular heartbeat. She’d been referred to a treatment center that specialized in eating disorders and had received not only a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa but also major depression. In 48 hours, the rhythm of her life had been completely disrupted. When she’d finally had a break from the whirlwind of tests, she’d called Anathema in tears. So far, Anathema and a couple uni administrators were the only people who knew what had happened. It’d been two weeks since she’d last attended class. 

Crowley went to her desk for the notebook she kept there and found a fine layer of dust on the sleek glass top. Her flat might’ve been small, but it was scrupulously tidy—and a bit too coldly minimalist according to Pepper and Anathema—all metal and glass edges. 

Anathema took the opened notebook when Crowley presented it to her with a mumbled, "I’m having trouble with the meter."

If starlight in its crossing fails to cleave

the dark in two, then falling is the way

we go to pay her for our sins; to grieve

lost blessings she bestowed upon the clay

of flesh—go far from Eden lands verdant

and leave temptress to crawl in ashes wrought

by her own will and whisper the serpent

song: so susurrus and wonderous, brought

holy paradises low; first woman

lost to temptation’s delight and demon

thrall, but _choice_ , _O_ _choice_ , cries the inhuman

din, lift high the wise into her gleaming

heavens hung with stars and keep me still

to measure sin against my god’s goodwill

Smoothing the page with her hand, Anathema looked up at Crowley. “As always, I’m in love with it. If you want, we could discuss ideas over dinner. Anything you want.” 

“Yeah,” said Crowley, hugging the notebook to her chest. “That’d be great.”

* * *

Apples had always felt safe. She told the dietician this, she shared it in group, she mentioned it to her therapist. They’re the one indulgence she allowed.

A nurse took her blood pressure, made her step onto the scale backwards so that she couldn’t see the numbers.

She doesn’t remember any of the names of the other patients in her group, forgot them as soon as they were spoken. Everyone looked so normal. She supposed she looked normal for the most part. She didn’t know what she expected. The therapist who lead their group had curly red hair and wore probably too much makeup, but Crowley was quickly endeared to her when she personally greeted her and introduced herself simply as Tracy. She wasn’t the grim, overly-serious professional Crowley expected. Tracy had the energy of an eccentric aunt, and somehow, this relaxed Crowley. Everyone in the group was a _dear_ and _love_ to her.

It was late afternoon when Crowley was on the way back to her flat and found herself at the same Soho crossroads again. With the way the sun was slanting, she couldn’t tell if the lights were on in the bookshop or not.

 _You’re welcome anytime you’re in the area_ , Aziraphine had said. Crowley swallowed and stepped up to the door. She hesitated. She had nothing to say, knew nothing about the bookseller or the kinds of books she sold. But there’d been something truly genuine in the offer, so Crowley tried the door, and— Locked. She squinted at the opening hours again. It was well within business hours, but perhaps Aziraphine had briefly stepped out, had an errand to run. Crowley tried in vain to push down the wave of disappointment in her gut as she stepped down the stairs. She was turning away when the door opened.

“Crowley?”

When Crowley turned back, Aziraphine was there in the doorway with a smile on her face. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said. “Do come in.”

Crowley ducked her head to hide her blush and followed Aziraphine inside.

“I was just closing up for the day,” she said, flipping the sign on the door to _Closed_.

“Sorry to bother you. Just thought you’d still be open.” Crowley shifted uneasily. The usual confident swagger she employed to hide her insecurity crumbled in Aziraphine’s presence.

“How have things been for you today? Better, I hope?” she asked.

“Started IOP today. I think it went well.

“IOP?”

“Er, intensive outpatient therapy.” Crowley rubbed at her wrist only to remember that the paper wristband was gone.

“I’m glad you’re getting the help you need,” Aziraphine said, voice warm and gentle. “I’m . . . glad you came back.”

 _Oh, hell_ , Crowley thought. Anathema was right. She was falling for someone who wore shapeless beige skirts and _pocket watches_.

“Me too,” said Crowley, breathless.

Aziraphine smiled again. “Tea?” she suggested.

“Sounds good.”

Again, they retreated to the bookshop’s cozy backroom, and Aziraphine paused with her hand on the kettle.

“Or perhaps,” she started, back turned, “you’d prefer something different? I keep a decent selection of wine on hand.”

 _Shit, okay_. Aziraphine was not what she’d expected.

Crowley’s hand went to her stomach, an involuntary habit that she passed off as smoothing her shirt. Checking her body’s proportions, pinching her skin and fat, was something she did so many times a day she’d lost track of it. The meal offered at the treatment center earlier that day had been triggering. No other way to say it. Other people’s sense of comfortably full set warning signals blaring in her brain. She still felt heavy and fragile from it.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Aziraphine said abruptly. “Forgive me. You must think me terribly insensitive, offering alcohol after what you’ve just told me.”

Crowley struggled for words. “No, ‘course not. It’s not—” She thought back to what she’d told Aziraphine at their first meeting. _I have this thing that’s been ruining my life_. “Drinking isn’t my problem.”

Thinking about her body in numbers was her problem. Counting and checking and obsessing and perfection were her problem. She didn’t drink because most alcohol represented an unknown number, and she needed control.

“I didn’t mean to assume.”

“Could I take you up on that some other time?”

“Certainly.”

The backroom had no windows, and the lamplight shined an intimate amber. The bookshelves insulated them from the outside world, and Crowley never wanted to leave.

Aziraphine brewed a fruity mint tea and offered it to Crowley in the same delicate china as before. 

“Would you tell me about yourself? Whatever you’re comfortable sharing,” said Aziraphine, settling in her chair.

“Sure,” said Crowley, already comfortable enough to sprawl on the couch. “Studying poetry at uni, getting my master’s degree this time around. Looking forward to the summer so I can get out of the city and actually see the stars again.” Crowley scrounged around in her brain in a vain attempt to come up with something else about herself, her life. All she was was school and the secret version of herself that insisted on control, that distorted her body in the mirror. For years at least, she’d not known what her body truly looked like to others. To her, it was something to be endlessly tamed. “School takes up a lot of my time.” She tried to shrug it off.

Aziraphine took a thoughtful sip of her tea, closing her eyes to savor it. She swallowed, sighed contentedly. Crowley didn’t know if she’d ever savored anything so much in her life. The possibility thrilled and scared her all at once.

“I studied classic lit, but this place always called to me. I spent my weekends studying here, and when I graduated, I learned that my grandfather had left the shop to me.”

“Does he still visit?”

“He passed before I finished school. But I have all his favorite books to remember him. I could show you if you’re interested?”

Aziraphine led her to a case where old tomes were laid out beneath glass. “Misprinted Bibles,” she said in a scandalous whisper.

And Crowley laughed. The first time she’d laughed in weeks. Aziraphine opened the glass, slipped on a pair of gloves, and turned to some of the juiciest misprints to read aloud. They were laughing together until the sunset was glaring red through the windows and Aziraphine sighed, “I should properly close up.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley. She didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to be alone in her flat with her thoughts.

“I know a nice little café nearby. Would you like to get breakfast there with me?” Aziraphine asked.

Dread snuffed the flicker of happiness that’d been lit in Crowley’s chest. But she said, “Yeah, sure, whatever you like.”

“Perhaps, oh, is tomorrow too early?”

Crowley swallowed. “Nah, sounds fine.”

And so the next day, Crowley met Aziraphine before IOP instead of wandering into her shop after, seeking warmth and affection and a glimpse of normalcy.

The little café seemed too busy for its size, with people constantly muttering _sorry_ and _excuse me_ to each other as they shuffled to retrieve coffee orders or sit down at the cramped tables. Upon spotting Crowley, Aziraphine waved to her from a little corner table she’d managed to secure, and Crowley weaved her way through the crowd towards her. 

“A tad busier than usual this morning,” Aziraphine said by way of apology.

“Eh, no problem,” said Crowley, shrugging out of her jacket. When she looked up from draping it across the back of the chair, she caught Aziraphine eyeing the giant tattooed snake wound around her forearm.

“Goodness,” she breathed.

Crowley was struck with the urge to put her hands in her lap and felt silly. She hadn’t hidden her tattoos since she was a teenager, and she’d only ever felt self-conscious around her mother. But Aziraphine seemed, at least in appearance, to be the kind of person who would disapprove of tattoos, and Crowley desperately didn’t want to disappoint this strange woman.

“It’s beautiful,” Aziraphine added, reaching across the table and stopping just short of touching Crowley at the last moment. “Why a snake?” she asked, and there was no judgment in her tone. There never was.

“They can just shrug out of their skin and be completely new, see evidence of the fact that they’ve changed and grown. That’s the official reason anyway.”

Aziraphine giggled. “The official reason? And what others are there?”

“Eh, too moody to admit to in public. Maybe I’ll tell you later,” Crowley teased.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Since they were on the topic of symbols and meanings, Crowley took a chance and nodded at Aziraphine’s necklace. “What about you? Are you . . .” She searched for the right words.

Aziraphine patted at her chest as if she’d forgotten the necklace. “Oh, this?”

“Religious?” Crowley managed at the same time.

“Ah, well, it’s kind of a family thing. Passed down to me.”

Crowley cocked an eyebrow questioningly, unsure of whether she was talking about her necklace or her beliefs.

“It’s my mother’s necklace,” Aziraphine clarified.

Was everything in this family passed down and inherited? Did everything have a lineage, a story?

A waitress appeared beside their table looking harried and a bit out of breath. “What can I get you ladies?” she asked.

“Oh dear,” said Aziraphine. “We got carried away chatting. Could we have another minute?”

The woman nodded and hurried away to another table, and Crowley, uncomfortably, remembered why they were here in the first place. Aziraphine was already absorbed in her menu, lips pursed and brow slightly furrowed in thought. Crowley pretended to browse the menu as if she was interested, careful not to focus too much on the menu items. The mystery of items without listed calorie counts was still enough, on her worst days, to send her into a spiral, and after years of memorizing the approximate calorie counts of various foods, she was lucky if she could look at a description without seeing a numbered total, red and warning. She folded her menu and resisted the urge to dig her sunglasses out of her jacket pocket. If she had to meet anyone’s eyes right now, she thought she might cry.

Her chest tightened. She put her hand to her belly to check that her body was still the same shape. To reassure. A bad habit.

 _List ten things you can see_ , the memory of her therapist’s voice prompted her. She looked across the table. Golden cross. Out the window. A pigeon on the sidewalk. A person wearing nude heels.

“What are you having?” Aziraphine interrupted before Crowley could finish her list. She’d put aside her menu, and her attention was fully on Crowley.

The waitress appeared again with the same question.

“Just, ah, black coffee, please,” Crowley answered, her fear speaking for her. The tension eased. Black coffee. Safe.

She didn’t hear what Aziraphine ordered. When the waitress left, Aziraphine turned back to her with a question on her lips that she was hesitating to ask. Crowley thought to fall back on her usual lie of having had a big breakfast, but they were at breakfast _now_ , and Crowley didn’t want to make Aziraphine think she’d already eaten before their shared meal.

“You were saying—about your mother?” Crowley prompted because she’d rather talk about anything else—would rather walk through Hell—than broach whatever it was Aziraphine thought she’d observed.

Aziraphine looked confused for a moment and then said, “Oh, yes, we were talking about that, weren’t we?” She ran her fingers thoughtfully down the long delicate chain. “It’s my mother’s,” she repeated. “I love her, and that’s why I wear it, but it’s taken me some time to become comfortable with the fact that I don’t have to go along with what she thinks I should do with my life. Our relationship is, well, complicated, you understand? I don’t think I believe exactly as she does.”

Crowley was _not_ going to talk about her own mother, a woman who’d thrown her out of the house and thoroughly disowned her just before her sixteenth birthday. She’d gone to live with an aunt and changed her name.

“That sounds tough,” said Crowley and meant it.

* * *

She’d tried to keep writing in the hospital, had drafts of poems for her workshop portfolio because she was that kind of perfectionist: in the hospital and still trying to work. They’d given her a dull pencil stub and a sheet of printer paper. Nurses checked in on her as she wrote.

To measure sin against my god’s goodwill:

find feathers black and sulphur hot beneath

a watchful eye and turn to grace instilled

within the mortal soul, a gift bequeathed

and heaven-sent to all but those who dwell

where stars are merely memories held

fast to aching chest, where wind daren’t swell

‘neath heavy wing and punishment’s upheld.

Find solace in the angel fretting ‘top

a garden wall—the only one who bade

yourself a _may you be forgiven_. Stop

time and Heaven, Hell, and all—they’d

seek another kind of Fall. Cherish me

as if you’d eaten from the garden tree.

When she’d been released from the hospital, she had a folded square of sonnets that she tucked into her notebook with the others—all of them a little imperfect like her.

* * *

Eleven days remained before the end of the spring semester, and Aziraphine and Crowley had fallen into an easy rhythm. Sometimes they’d meet for breakfast. Crowley would order black coffee. Aziraphine wouldn’t question her. Crowley would try not to stare—and fail at not staring—while Aziraphine closed her eyes to savor scones and cookies and cakes and crepes. After therapy, Crowley would go immediately to the bookshop where she’d work to catch up on her literature classes and wrestle with meter while Aziraphine sat nearby with a too-heavy book and some tea.

 _At the bookshop again?_ texted Anathema, and Crowley didn’t need to hear her friend’s voice to know she was teasing.

 _shut it_ , she replied, knowing that Anathema would read only affection.

Crowley was sitting on the backroom couch again and bent over a poem.

As if you’d eaten from the garden tree,

your lips are sweet with answers you decry.

With me you can pretend to disagree

and all for good appearances deny

to know the one who set the stars in night.

Yet under Her sunlight you deign consort

and from forked tongue seek to know what is right.

For all these years, I still could not purport

to know the constellation of your heart.

Evil begotten from holy intent

and good wrought from hellish infernal art.

Must the serpent always from love be rent?

To return to the question of our start:

If our truths we speak, must we fall apart?

Aziraphine was suddenly standing in front of her with a small plate of biscuits and tea, and Crowley jumped, startled, and shut her notebook.

“Some fuel while you work,” she said.

“M’not hungry,” muttered Crowley.

“Nonsense,” said Aziraphine. “You’ve been working for hours.”

“I had lunch.”

“Which would’ve been hours ago. It’s nearly supper.” Aziraphine’s voice was light, but when Crowley looked up at her, her smile faded. Crowley didn’t know what she’d read there, but it was enough to thicken the air between them. _I have this thing that’s been ruining my life_.

“Look, I appreciate our breakfasts”— _where I don’t eat_ —“and the food you’ve offered”— _which I never take_ —“but I’m . . .” _I’m sabotaging my own recovery. I’m scared of my own body._

There was a reason she always wore a leather jacket and was never warm. There was a reason she compulsively lied about when and what she’d eaten. There was a reason Aziraphine’s way of showing affection terrified her as much as it was a glimpse of how her life could be different. Better. Healthier.

Aziraphine waited. Crowley couldn’t meet her gaze. There were ways she could tell the truth in vague and ambiguous terms, and those were tempting, but she had spent years under the weight of this secret. Here was another person willing to listen and love her, and she was still scared even though Anathema had been nothing but kind and supportive. She could do this again.

“I was diagnosed with anorexia,” she said. And she tried not to cross her arms. Tried not to shield herself. Group had made this easier, she realized. Vulnerability wouldn’t ruin her. “Even though I’m doing all these things to get better, sometimes I don’t think I want to. I’m scared of what my body will be if I don’t keep restricting.”

There. The truth.

Aziraphine set the biscuits and tea aside. “Is there anything you need me to do or not do? How can I help?” Her voice was so gentle. Crowley’s chest felt full when she finally looked up.

“Just . . .” She breathed. “Just being here with you, talking to you, is perfect.”

Aziraphine reached for Crowley, slowly, as if waiting for her to pull away. Crowley was still, suddenly couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but look up into Aziraphine’s eyes.

“You’re perfect and lovely,” she said, cupping Crowley’s face with her hands and pressing a kiss to her forehead. Aziraphine’s necklace fell forward so that the gold cross was like a seal at Crowley’s lips, and she lingered there, her warm touch warding away the chill on Crowley’s cheeks. Crowley breathed in the bright scent of her perfume. Could finally breathe.

Aziraphine was drawing away when Crowley caught the cross between her teeth and said, “Don’t go, Angel.”

The words slipped out like that, and Crowley froze, was afraid to reach out and touch her in case none of it was real. Aziraphine stared at her, eyes darting down to Crowley’s lips where she clenched the cross in her teeth. Crowley had only a moment to doubt herself, to think about how silly she was, before they were kissing and the cross was suddenly cool and metallic on her tongue. She was sure this was blasphemous, but she realized she didn’t care. Aziraphine braced her arms against the back of the couch, leaning into the kiss and pressing Crowley into the soft leather. She was climbing into Crowley’s lap when the shop bell rang out.

Aziraphine was suddenly on her feet and straightening her clothes.

“Sorry,” Crowley panted.

Aziraphine gave her a reassuring smile before going to the front of the shop. Crowley drank the cold tea with shaking hands. _Shitshitshit, what was I thinking?_

When her heart calmed and her embarrassment subsided, she noticed the voices in the front of the shop, how Aziraphine had shifted to a tone she’d never heard before.

“Out of the question. This was my grandfather’s shop,” she was saying, voice firm and unfriendly.

“And we asked him the same question, but we thought a young lady such as yourself would be more reasonable,” said another voice, a man.

“Over three hundred years my family has sold books here. If you do indeed think me reasonable, you will understand that I cannot sell.”

“This part of Soho is ripe for redevelopment, but we understand relocating a business is obviously expensive. Fortunately, I’m in a position to make you a very generous offer,” the man returned.

“You can leave my shop,” Aziraphine said, each word punctuated with finality.

Crowley was already on her feet when a great crash shuddered through the floor.

“What—” Aziraphine started, but another voice cut her off.

“Looks like these old shelves are a bit unstable. Wouldn’t want to endanger your clientele.”

“And so much old paper and dust. Seems a fire hazard,” came a third.

“Get out of my shop before I call the police,” Aziraphine was saying as Crowley joined her.

She was standing her ground against three looming men in suits who were doing their best to invade her personal space. A shelf lay splintered on the floor, its books strewn about.

“This your backup?” one of the men chuckled. “Nothing but bones under that tough leather jacket.”

“Leave,” Aziraphine said again.

“Think about my offer,” the tallest said. “Come on, boys.” He stalked towards the door, pausing to pointedly light a cigarette and glance back at Aziraphine before the three of them were gone.

Aziraphine locked the door, and the two of them stared at the wreckage of the shelf. Only now did Aziraphine allow tears to come to her eyes. She went to collect the books from the floor, inspecting spines and pages for damage, stepping gingerly around the skeleton of the shelf. Crowley joined her, and by nightfall, they had set the books in neat stacks. The shelf would have to be replaced.

“Aziraphine,” Crowley started, the first to break the silence. “Should we . . .?”

“I’ll call my mother,” she said with reluctance. “She’s dealt with them before.”

“Oh,” said Crowley because she didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s—it’s never been this bad.”

They hadn’t bothered to turn on more lights as they worked, and the shop was filled with shadows.

“Is there anything I can do?” asked Crowley.

Aziraphine was looking at the shelf again. “Thank you, but I don’t think so.” She turned back to Crowley, tried to smile, brushed the lapels of Crowley’s jacket. They kissed again, softer, less frantic. “Call me when you get home?”

* * *

By lamplight, Crowley wrote. She was determined to turn the portfolio in on time and needed one more sonnet to complete the crown. Returning to the one she’d started in the bookshop, she bent over her desk.

If our truths we speak, must we fall apart?

I know these lands; I know your winged path

through both the east and west—an inked chart

upon a weathered page. If you fear wrath

from high above, I know a secret place:

come with me to my favorite stars and dance

through cold freedom of this, our outer space.

In my world, far from their sight, if you perchance

to meet my eyes and take my hand, I’ll tell

you how I felt upon the garden wall.

Angel bright and kind e’en to foe of Hell—

fallen human and angel alike all

find solace beneath your wing. Let me say

how much I love you in the light of day.

* * *

The next day, Crowley was almost out the door when Tracy stopped her with a sweet, “Dearie.” She turned. The others from group had already left. The smell of lunch lingered in the room, making her nauseous. Her body felt too heavy.

“Something’s on your mind, something you didn’t share today,” she said. “Now I won’t pry, but you’ve been glowing these past few days you’ve come in. Today’s different.”

Between Tracy and Anathema, she couldn’t hide anything.

“There’s this girl,” started Crowley. “I see her for breakfast every morning before meeting with the dietician. Only this morning I didn’t.”

Tracy waited.

 _That’s all_ , she could say, and Tracy would let her be.

“I’m just worried about her. She’s so kind and doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her.”

“Hope it’s nothing too serious,” said Tracy, the side of her that Crowley thought of as a protective aunt coming through.

“It’s . . .” Men trashing one’s shop and threatening arson—whether they actually intended to follow through on the threat or not—was pretty serious.

“Why don’t you take her something nice? To show that you’re thinking about her. Everyone appreciates that kind of thing.”

And so, while fretting over Tracy’s advice, Crowley happened to spy a florist on the way to the shop. She stared in the window, kept walking, circled her way back. _Fucking hell_ , she thought, and entered. The person behind the counter seemed to have been waiting for her because they couldn’t quite tame their amused smile into a generic customer service one.

This was how Crowley ended up crossing the street to the bookshop with a small bouquet of flowers in the crook of her arm. Not roses. Roses would be too much. Crowley didn’t know anything about flowers but had chosen a pre-arranged bunch with white, blue, and yellow blossoms. Colors that reminded her of Aziraphine.

Worried that the men had returned in her absence, Crowley peeked in the windows as she approached. The sign was turned to _Closed_ and there was a woman standing with Aziraphine where she knew the broken bookshelf lay. Aziraphine kept putting her hand to her face, wiping at her eyes, and shaking her head at the other woman. Crowley didn’t want to be seen loitering—more accurately, she was worried about passersby looking at her clutching the flowers and seeing an anxious, love-drunk fool—so she circled the block. When she’d come back around to the door, the woman was exiting and paused to look Crowley up and down. Did she see the same thing the man in the shop had the day before—someone fragile and trying too hard?

The woman opened her mouth as if she might say something. She had the same impossibly blond hair and blue eyes as Aziraphine. So this was her mother. Their wordless exchange was barely more than a glance, but Crowley felt as if it had gone on forever by the time the woman turned primly away and crossed the street. Crowley ducked inside the shop as if seeking shelter from her icy blue stare. Not even her sunglasses had felt like a sufficient shield.

“Crowley!” Aziraphine practically breathed her name in relief.

“Brought you something,” said Crowley, holding out the flowers. She felt silly, but—

“How beautiful!” said Aziraphine, taking them carefully as if they were one of her grandfather’s old books. Up close, Crowley could see that her eyes were red from crying. “I think I have the perfect vase for them.”

Crowley followed her to the backroom and watched her arrange the flowers in a crystal vase.

“Did your mum have any idea what to do about those bastards?” she made herself ask.

Aziraphine sighed, rested her hip against the desk. “We’ve reported it. Police came and took photos of the damage. We gave them descriptions of the men. Mum was upset with me for clearing the books like I did. She said it was evidence, but I was just so shocked, you know? They’ve come in before, but they were just rude with mum. There weren’t threats.”

“Did they give their names?”

“No. We don’t have much to go on other than their descriptions, and they looked so average.”

Crowley sighed, folded and pocketed her glasses.

“Your day has been well I hope?” said Aziraphine.

“Fine, yeah,” said Crowley. Her mind was still on the men, the threat of fire, but Aziraphine seemed to want to move on.

“Perhaps this is too forward of me, and you can tell me if it is, but I’m so very curious about this portfolio you’ve been working on. When you’re done . . . Well, are you letting people read it?”

“If ‘people’ is you, yes,” she said with a good-natured smirk. “But I have to forewarn you how much I’ve butchered the Shakespearian sonnet.”

“I’m sure you’re doing your best,” said Aziraphine, closing the distance between them and resting her hands on Crowley’s shoulders. “And about yesterday . . .”

Crowley knew she wasn’t talking about the men now. She swallowed. “Yeah?”

“Thank you for trusting me.”

 _‘S nothing_ , she wanted to say. _Sure, Angel_. “I feel safe with you.”

Aziraphine ran her fingers through Crowley’s artfully tousled hair, leaned in and kissed her. “And I with you. I’m glad I wasn’t alone yesterday.” She studied Crowley’s face before saying, “You’ll tell me if I ever make you uncomfortable, won’t you? Or you can tell me things I should avoid saying or doing, and I’ll respect that.”

“Actually, if you could help me stay accountable. I haven’t strictly been following the meal plan I agreed on with the dietician. I’m still scared.” Her voice failed her, and this last part came out as a whisper.

Their routine changed in small ways. Crowley would order something small to eat at their café—she’d come to think of it as “their” café—and manage half before offering what remained of her plate to Aziraphine. She’d cut her food into tiny pieces, but she would eat. Slowly. By the time lunch came at the treatment center, she didn’t feel hungry but would make herself eat because this was how she got better. This was how she got better, she told herself. Some days she would collapse on the bookshop couch in tears, and Aziraphine would rub comforting circles into her back. Some days it was nausea. Bloating. Her body didn’t know what it meant to be nourished. She’d step on the scale backwards every day, and her therapist would affirm all the work she was doing. She ate bites of food she hadn’t allowed herself in years and sometimes felt stronger for it, sometimes felt brittle.

In this way, they came to the end of the semester.

Crowley had skipped the café—but not breakfast—to pick up her finished portfolio from the printer and drop off one of the copies in her professor’s mailbox. The remaining copy she tucked away in her bag to give to Aziraphine when she saw her after IOP. They’d planned a small celebration. A. Z. Fell and Co. would host its first ever reading. Anathema had done the work of inviting all their classmates, and it would be the first time Crowley had seen them all in weeks.

But on her way to the bookshop that afternoon, something heavy settled in Crowley’s chest. Why should she be nervous about seeing her cohort again? Why should she be anxious about reading aloud? About sharing her work with Aziraphine?

Smoke was rising into the air when she glimpsed the crossroads. A small crowd had gathered. People were murmuring, pointing, and among them, Aziraphine stood worrying her necklace and staring wide-eyed at the roof of the bookshop. When Crowley stepped up beside her, she uttered a choked sound. Flames were already visible through the windows and rising.

“I’d just stepped out for lunch and—” A sob cut through her words.

“Someone’s called the fire service?” asked Crowley, and she felt detached from her voice, as if someone else was speaking through her.

Aziraphine nodded. She clutched at Crowley as if she might drown. “My grandfather’s books,” whispered Aziraphine, and in that moment, the world dropped away and there was only smoke and fire and Aziraphine.

“I can get them,” said Crowley, starting forward. She didn’t know what she was saying. Her body was numb and heavy but moving. The door was close. Her hand was on it. Someone was screaming, screaming at her to come back, but she was in the smoke, and it was hot. Flames rose around her. She covered her nose and squinted through the smoke, hurrying to the case at the back of the shop that housed the misprinted Bibles. Mechanically, she gathered them in her arms, held them to her chest. She choked, ducked low under the smoke. She picked around a fallen shelf, singed her leg, ducked lower. Her lungs burned. She couldn’t see, was navigating the space by memory. Eventually, she fell against the door, pushed it open, and practically fell into the arms of a uniformed person.

“Get her away from here!” they were calling, guiding Crowley to another uniformed person close by.

How long had she been in there? Had there been sirens? She couldn’t stop coughing. Someone at her side was crying. She couldn’t stop clutching the books. A hand was placing a mask against her face, and the air was so clean.

* * *

She woke in the hospital again. She knew because of the ceiling. The thought came so clearly to her she almost laughed.

“Crowley?” Aziraphine’s voice, breathless.

Crowley coughed, brought her hand so her mouth and found a mask affixed over her nose and mouth, providing a stream of oxygen.

“Fuck,” she rasped. Her lungs ached.

“Why did you do that?” Her hand was gentle on Crowley’s shoulder, but her eyes were still wide and scared.

“They were old. Your grandfather’s.”

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking. She _hadn’t_ been thinking. The memory of that second night they’d spent together, she and Aziraphine giggling over misprints in fragile holy texts, rose to the surface. The pride in Aziraphine’s eyes whenever she spoke about the history of the building, how her grandfather had willed the property to her. It seemed too much to lose it all.

“I could’ve lost you too.” Now her eyes were teary. “Why did you do that?” she repeated.

A nurse entered then, talked to Crowley, recorded her pulse. “You’re lucky the symptoms are mild,” she said. “The burn on your leg too.” Crowley was so disoriented she hadn’t felt the burn, but as soon as the nurse called attention to it, she felt the hot swathe of skin on her calf.

Aziraphine stood by and worried her necklace.

“I’ll let the doctor speak with you and let you know when you can be released. We just want to monitor to make sure you’re stable. And you’ll need to check back in with us after this.”

Crowley nodded. The nurse left. Crowley reached out her hand and Aziraphine took it, kissed her knuckles.

* * *

“Open your eyes,” said Aziraphine.

Crowley stared at her reflection, the first time she had consciously looked at herself in the mirror since leaving the hospital weeks earlier. For so long, mirrors had felt unsafe. Crowley only ever used them to judge herself. Now, though, with Aziraphine smiling behind her and her warm hands on her shoulders, she felt secure.

“I get it,” said Crowley. Aziraphine had crowned her with a strand of blue flowers, the same kind of flowers Crowley’d gifted her only days ago. Their blue petals clashed with her red hair.

“Your own crown. To celebrate the completion of your sonnets.” Aziraphine’s hands slipped down Crowley’s back, came to wrap around her so that they were pressed close. There was barely room for them both in the cramped bathroom of Crowley’s flat, and the tile was cold under her feet, but somehow, everything felt perfect here in this moment.

“Now,” she whispered in Crowley’s ear. “I want to hear about this star maker.”


End file.
